Tridevco (Pty) Ltd and Witfontein X16 Boerdery CC v Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development and Others
[2025] ZASCA 110; Case No 62/2024 (Supreme Court of Appeal, 22 July 2025)
This judgment has been designated reportable because it settles an important and frequently recurring question about the reach of the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act 70 of 1970. The Court’s interpretation of the definition of agricultural land and its comments on rationality in administrative decision-making will guide future subdivision applications, provincial planning authorities, and litigants challenging ministerial refusals. The decision also clarifies the interface between national food-security objectives and municipal spatial-planning strategies such as the Ekurhuleni Urban Edge policy.
No earlier authorities are expressly cited in the excerpt provided. The Court’s reasoning is, however, grounded in general principles drawn from South African precedent on statutory interpretation and administrative review.
Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act 70 of 1970
Transvaal Board for the Development of Peri-Urban Areas Ordinance 20 of 1943
Transvaal Town-planning and Townships Ordinance (1965)
None mentioned in the provided text.
The appellants, Tridevco (Pty) Ltd and Witfontein X16 Boerdery CC, own the Remainder of Portion 5 of Farm Witfontein X16 situated within the Ekurhuleni Urban Edge. Seeking to develop a mixed-use township, they applied under the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act (SALA) for ministerial consent to subdivide the property. The Delegate of the Minister refused the application on the ground that the land is of high agricultural potential and must be preserved for food security. An internal appeal to the Minister met the same fate.
Unsuccessful in the Gauteng High Court, the appellants approached the Supreme Court of Appeal. The majority (Vally AJA) partially upheld the appeal. Although it declined to declare the land non-agricultural, it found the Minister’s decision irrational and remitted the matter for reconsideration. A separate concurring judgment by Unterhalter JA provided additional observations on rational decision-making under the Constitution.
The case turns on the proper, context-sensitive meaning of agricultural land in section 1 of SALA, the historical background to the 1943 Ordinance referenced in that definition, and the rationality requirement in administrative law.
Whether the appellants’ land falls outside the statutory concept of agricultural land in section 1 of SALA.
Whether the Minister’s refusal to authorise subdivision was rational in light of the purposes of SALA and the evidence before her.
Whether declaratory relief was warranted in addition to, or instead of, review relief.
The Supreme Court of Appeal held that the property could not, on the record before it, be excluded from the definition of agricultural land. However, the Minister had failed to demonstrate how blanket preservation of the entire property served SALA’s objectives where substantial non-arable portions were earmarked for urban development and where municipal spatial plans envisaged such development. The decision was thus irrational and had to be set aside. The matter was remitted to the Minister for fresh consideration. Costs were awarded against the Minister on a partial indemnity basis.
The property lies within a strategic development node forming part of the Ekurhuleni Aerotropolis around O.R. Tambo International Airport. Tridevco purchased the land with a view to establishing a large mixed-use township comprising residential, business, industrial, and open-space erven.
On 24 April 2019 Tridevco applied to the Delegate of the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development for consent to subdivide in terms of SALA. The Delegate refused the application on 5 August 2019, citing the land’s classification as high-potential arable land and the Department’s food-security mandate.
Tridevco appealed internally. On 1 October 2020 the Minister upheld the refusal. She referred to an agricultural-potential assessment by Dr Andries Gouws indicating that 219.2 hectares were highly arable and had historically yielded crops. She concluded that approving the township would undermine national food security.
Tridevco approached the High Court for (a) a declarator that its land was not agricultural land under SALA and (b) review relief. The High Court dismissed both claims but granted leave to appeal.
The Supreme Court of Appeal had to decide, first, whether the land is excluded from SALA because it allegedly falls within an area once governed by a Local Area Committee created under the 1943 Ordinance, and, second, whether the Minister’s refusal met the constitutional standard of rationality. A related question was whether declaratory relief was appropriate where review relief might suffice.
Vally AJA began with a historical examination of the 1943 Peri-Urban Areas Ordinance, highlighting its purpose of bringing rudimentary local-government services to rapidly urbanising zones outside established municipalities. The Court emphasised that only land actually situated in an area subject to a Local Area Committee at the commencement of SALA falls outside the Act’s definition of agricultural land. The appellants produced no cogent evidence that their farm was within such an area.
Turning to rationality, the Court accepted that protecting high-potential arable land is a legitimate SALA purpose. But the Minister’s reasons were formulaic and failed to grapple with evidence showing that not all 261 hectares possessed agricultural value, that municipal spatial-development policies supported the proposed urban use, and that a flexible subdivision could accommodate both farming and development. By ignoring relevant considerations and overstating others, the Minister acted irrationally.
The separate judgment of Unterhalter JA agreed that the decision was irrational but stressed that the Minister’s discretion remains wide; the proper remedy is remittal, not substitution. Unterhalter JA also elaborated on the need for careful factual evaluation when balancing food security against developmental imperatives.
The SCA dismissed the claim for a declarator but reviewed and set aside the Minister’s decision of 1 October 2020. It remitted the subdivision application to the Minister for reconsideration in accordance with the judgment. The Minister was ordered to pay 50 percent of the appellants’ costs, including the costs of two counsel.
A property is excluded from SALA only if, at the commencement of the Act, it was situated in an area under the jurisdiction of a Local Area Committee established under the 1943 Peri-Urban Areas Ordinance; mere proximity to an urban edge or later municipal plans does not suffice.
Administrative decisions must be rationally connected to the information before the decision-maker and to the statutory purpose. Even where a statute aims at national food security, decision-makers must evaluate all relevant evidence, including contemporary spatial-planning frameworks, and may not adopt a blanket preservation approach.
Where an administrative decision is irrational, the default remedy is to set it aside and remit the matter to the original decision-maker unless exceptional circumstances justify substitution.
These principles reinforce the constitutional duty of the state to act transparently and rationally while balancing competing societal interests such as food security and urban development.